Bill Krissoff

When Marines came to his door a year ago to tell him that his eldest son had been killed in Iraq, Bill Krissoff reacted like any father: with confusion, devastation, then numbness. Nathan Krissoff was so young, a lover of poetry, a champion athlete, a leader whose maturity and selflessness had impressed fellow Marines. The father in Krissoff found no resolution to his grief. The physician in him did. At an age when many people think about retirement, Krissoff decided earlier this year that he would enlist as a doctor. He was 60 years old, decades above the military’s preferred demographic…. But his age was a sticking point. His application bogged down in the military bureaucracy. He thought things might be hopeless. Then, in late August, Krissoff and his wife, Christine, were invited to meet with President Bush after his speech to the American Legion convention in Reno. At the end of the hourlong meeting, Bush asked Krissoff and other relatives of service members killed in Iraq and Afghanistan whether there was anything he could do for them. Krissoff mentioned his desire to enlist…. “Suddenly, I got all the support I needed from the bureaucracy to get this done,” Hopkins said. On Nov. 17, Krissoff, now 61, was commissioned a lieutenant commander in the Navy reserves, assigned to the medical corps. Rove sent flowers and a note of congratulations.